On the 20th of august we held our open day to welcome as many people as possible to the new club, have a drink in the newly opened TCs sports bar and play what else but rugby! As we wanted anyone and everyone to play it was probably best that we used the tag format rather than the touch format that always turns into full blown tackle.

All I needed to do now was get 60 people most of which I won’t know to come and play tag rugby. For that I just put it out to the lads and within two weeks we had 6 teams, we’d play a league system with the top 4 playing the semi-finals and the winners of that going into the final, easy! That’s it sorted!

It was until I started remembering about a BBQ, a raffle, a tombola, a bouncy castle, booking the pitch, organising with Becky the TCs manager, social media, getting raffle prizes, tombola prizes etc etc …… the etc’s could go on for a while believe me.

It was only 6 weeks previous that I had the idea in a committee meeting to do it, on the way home I was driving along laughing to myself saying “6 weeks to organise an open day, you idiot”. But I always think, you put everything into something you are passionate about and it will happen. the first thing then is getting like minded people who are exactly the same, that bit was easy with some of the people at the club, enter Bev Hodson, Sean Livingstone and Shirley John, without any of them and mor, this day would not have happened. The mark of any successful club, business or team is always shown by the quality of the people in it, Sean’s Mum and Dad did the BBQ, Stuart Hammond refereed every game and with a very sun burnt head, my daughter Lily did the results running, Chris Reed helped me calculate the results and league, Shirley’s daughter and Sam Hodkin looked after the bouncy castle, Shirley the tombola and I basically played music and made the sound of an air horn at the beginning and end of every game on my microphone as I couldn’t get the noise to play on Spotify. Bev Hodson was amazing, the raffle prizes, the bouncy castle and everything else she did was amazing!

The rugby itself was great, the six team consisted of Grey Matter, How I tagged your mother, Chorley stags, citizens on the ball, the clubs tag and the team I always said very slowly on the microphone, Norfolk…….in …….chance. Though this was supposed to be a bit of fun it very quickly brought out that competitive edge in lots of people, it was great to see if honest, everyone wanted to win. It was clear form the start that how I tagged your mother looked favourites with two wins in a row, Chorley stags also started well with ex-players and Ren Ingham making up the team. Chris Highton’s Citizens on the ball didn’t start well but quickly improved with Chris’s partner Charlotte and Becky and Stuart the TCs sports bar managers all taking part. All in all, everyone enjoyed the rugby and it was How I tagged your mother and grey matter who contested the final. Grey matter was run by Jonathan Jackson, JJ. When deciding on what to call the competition I came up with 4 or 5 names and after discussing with the chairman Andy John, we decided on “The JJ Trophy”. The trophy was named after JJ as he has been diagnosed with a brain tumour and has been involved with the club for over 25 years, so in reality the trophy should only be called after one person.

The final itself was very one sided with the club captain, Gwil Jones team, How I tagged your mother winning 7-2.

The day though was about a celebration of the new club opening, people getting together to play rugby, a lot of which had never played before, getting the families involved in the club and also putting a good day on for JJ.

The JJ trophy will not stop here, it will be ran at least once a year and will grow every time.

A huge thank you to everyone who supported the day whether it be playing, watching and especially to all the very kind local businesses who donated raffle and tombola prizes.

Thank you

Craney